Lisa Mascaro

Story Archive

Ignoring that she’s a freshman congresswoman and he’s a two-term senator, Democratic Rep. Dina Titus leveled a broadside against Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, who is holding up an extension of unemployment benefits for out-of-work Nevadans.

WASHINGTON — As Democrats consider a go-it-alone strategy for passing health care reform, polling out today shows a majority of Nevadans would support using the so-called reconciliation strategy to pass health legislation with a simple majority vote.

WASHINGTON -- The White House health summit is under way this morning with the president and congressional leaders giving sober opening remarks at the day-long meeting that both sides know could easily slide into political theater. President Barack Obama lamented that throughout the year-long health care debate politics “ended up trumping common sense” and he hoped the meeting at Blair House would not devolve into partisan mugging for the cameras. “I hope this isn’t political theater,” Obama said.

Democrats, facing tough midterm elections, know passing key legislation may be their only ticket to re-election in November

Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010

The political strategy in Washington these days is a familiar one to Las Vegas. It amounts to going for broke. All in. After a year of impasse on key legislation and sobering results in recent special elections, one might think President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats would pull back on their political agenda, perhaps try a new approach, something little less ambitious, something a little more bipartisan.

WASHINGTON — Heller told a weekend crowd at the Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner in Elko that Washington’s efforts to continue extending unemployment benefits for jobless Americans may be creating a dependent class, unable to get work.

WASHINGTON - One-third of voters in Nevada say they would be more likely to vote for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this fall if he wins passage of the public option in the health care bill, according to a poll released today.

President Barack Obama was in full campaign mode today at Green Valley High School, delivering a wide-ranging speech followed by a town-hall question-and-answer session that touched on health care reform, the economic recovery -- and even the importance of flossing daily.

WASHINGTON — In the midst of intense discussions in Congress last February over the economic recovery act, the new president turned to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for what would become the heavy lifting. The House and Senate were battling over the shape and substance of President Barack Obama’s first legislative priority.

WASHINGTON - Rep. Dean Heller, who is troubled by the possibility, said today that the Interior Department is eyeing The Heart of the Great Basin and the Nevada portion of the Owyhee Desert, "one of the most remote areas in the continental United States." Heller cited documents he said came from Interior.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's visit to Las Vegas this week will include a fundraiser that aims to raise $1 million for the Democratic National Committee, according to a source familiar with the event. Obama is expected to touch down in Las Vegas on Thursday and head to a fundraiser that evening for the DNC. The president will stay overnight in Las Vegas.

Tonight is the final performance of “The Rivalry,” a play that takes audiences at the historic Ford’s Theater on an itinerant journey through the Lincoln-Douglas senatorial debates that defined national politics in the 1858 midterm election.

The day after President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address — during which he uttered exactly one sentence about immigration reform — Democratic congressional leaders were asked if the issue was dead.

WASHINGTON -- Facing a jobs bill bogged down with special interest requests, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid abruptly switched course this afternoon, announcing he would instead pursue a pared back, $50 billion effort as the first in a series of jobs initiatives this year.

After all the years spent fighting the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, a phone call on a Wednesday in July between the Senate majority leader and the new energy secretary turned the tide.

When Richard Trumka ascended a stage in Pittsburgh last year to accept the presidency of AFL-CIO, he vowed to reinvigorate a flagging labor movement beset by globalization, corporate power and union infighting.

Here is how the Democrats’ 60-vote majority in the Senate came to an end. No election night confetti. No balloons. Just Sen.-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts standing at the back of the Senate chamber ready to take his place as the 41st Republican.

An ethics group urged President Barack Obama and lawmakers not to attend today’s National Prayer Breakfast, the annual gathering organized by the group that runs the C Street Christian home where Republican Sen. John Ensign and other lawmakers have lived.

President Barack Obama continued his congressional tour this morning, telling Senate Democrats "we should not be spooked" as he presses his second-year agenda in an increasingly difficult election year for the party.

The long and tortured effort to build a national burial ground at Yucca Mountain for highly radioactive waste will be halted once and for all, the Obama administration promised Monday, saying it would withdraw the application to build the project and starve it of funds.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department today filed a request to suspend Yucca Mountain's license application and announced plans to withdraw the license completely within a month -- a critical, crushing step to end the nuclear waste dump in Nevada. The Obama administration's new budget for 2011 out today promises to zero out funds and withdraw the license.

WASHINGTON -- The HUD secretary said today he is dispatching a foreclosure rapid-response team to Las Vegas and plans to add a total of eight new members to its Clark County office to deal with the housing crisis.

WASHINGTON -- Republican Sue Lowden’s campaign to oust Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will begin running television ads next month as she tries to establish herself as the frontrunner in a wide field of Republican primary challengers, sources said.

Harry Reid's re-election campaign raised more than $2 million during the last quarter of 2009. The campaign reported bringing in $2,019,548. It spent about $2 million during the quarter and has about $8.7 million on hand.

WASHINGTON -- The Southern Nevada congressional district held by Democratic Rep. Dina Titus is now a “toss-up” heading into the fall election, according to the Cook Political Report. “This is shaping up to be the worst year for Nevada Democrats in memory,” writes Cook’s David Wasserman.

When word got out that Democratic Rep. Dina Titus had said in a closed-door meeting that she thought Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s career is “done” — and dropped an F-bomb in the process — the Nevadans quickly got on the phone to each other.

Obama takes on Congress, both parties and the Supreme Court in his first State of the Union

Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010

WASHINGTON — The White House promised a feisty first state of the union speech, and President Barack Obama delivered tonight as he gently scolded Congress, both parties and even the Supreme Court in a talk that Nevada’s Democrats said reasserted Obama’s dominance after a year of difficult setbacks.

WASHINGTON -- Democratic Rep. Dina Titus insists today she did not suggest Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s career is “done” – but she makes no apologies for dropping the f-bomb to express her concern about the difficult election climate facing Democrats in fall.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed to press on with health care reform today while insisting “there is no rush” to finish the landmark legislation that has become stalled after last week’s election of a Republican senator from Massachusetts.

Democrats bear brunt of populist criticism that the party can’t fix the broken economy

Monday, Jan. 25, 2010

The first time then-President-elect Barack Obama assembled his economic team on a December day in Chicago in 2008, the prognosis was dire. The president embarked on an ambitious series of proposals that most economists believe saved the country from an even worse downturn in 2009.

Ben Bernanke met with Sen. Leader Harry Reid last week in the Nevadan’s office as the days were counting down before Bernanke’s term would expire. The meeting ended with a glaring omission: No announcement of Reid’s support for Bernanke’s confirmation. A day later Reid announced that he had an agreement from Bernanke to take steps that will help Nevada and the nation — and Bernanke had the majority leader’s vote.